I get up in the morning to a dazzling bright winter day. It is cold but the air is still. Did I say cold? There must be another name for it here. The middle of March in Kyzyl and it's cold enough to freeze the fluids in your nose in about two breaths. Cold enough that the snow on the sidewalks crystalizes overnight, making it crunchy to walk on until it is compressed again. Cold enough that I learn to ignore the sound of spinning tires because it is the norm, not the exception, So cold that the mile wide river next to town looks like a collection of frozen ice jambs. I wonder if it ever thaws out here. Do they have permafrost?
I walk a few hundred yards from the hotel to gawk and take pictures of the monument marking the center of Asia. It is topped by a tiny reindeer. Nearby is a yurt and some prayer flags. There are also several monuments to communism or socialism or something like that. The park is neat, clean and well built. A radio station blares over a loudspeaker. There is a good display of ice carvings. I walk around town wondering where everyone is. Kyzyl is the capital of the state of Tuva, a city of 50,000 people, but I see very few. I walk around town and see different government buildings and statues. None of the buildings are over 4 or 5 stories. In one spot there is the familiar statue of Lenin, standing with an outstretched arm. Next to it is one of those digital billboards that changes its message constantly. Lenin would have choked on his statue being so close to such a symbol of capitalism.
People seem friendly enough to give me a glance but not a stare. I think my light outerwear is a subject of their curiosity. It seems like around half the people are local Mongolians (the country of Mongolia is not far away) and the other half are from eastern Russia. About once a day some Russian asks me a question, probably directions. They look puzzled when I say nyet Russisch. I found out later even that simple phrase was wrong, but they seemed to get the idea.
Kyzyl is exotic enough to be interesting but not dangerous. It's kind of hard to get to, but that can be said of a lot of places. A bit of that 'trouble' was my own doing. It's not the upper Amazon, Antarctica or the Highlands of Borneo. Kyzyl is just out of the way, slightly exotic, slightly foreboding and historically restricted to outsiders. It's just Kyzyl, and that's the way I like it.
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